Tuesday, February 24, 2009

There's a fun little gold quiz over at the U.S. Global Investors website that was spotted earlier today at Jim Letourneau's Big Picture Speculator blog/website.

That's my score below - 17 - see if you can beat it...Note: We're on the honor system here, but, the rules for claiming to best my score are: a) no looking up answers; b) the use of a calculator is allowed (for some reason I just popped one up to answer one of the bonus questions after having resisted any other assistance).

Regulators at the conference restated their commitment to flexibility and said they expect bankers and examiners to be creative and innovative.

"We regulators will need to consider doing things we have never done before," said Office of Thrift Supervision Director John Reich.

Comptroller of the Currency John Dugan said he had instructed examiners not to "second-guess" the decisions made by bankers when renegotiating loan terms with customers.

Regulators also finalized CRA guidelines on Thursday that say financial institutions will be granted community development credit for loans, investments, and services to distressed areas.

The guidelines say that investing in middle- and upper-income areas (particularly in rural areas, to attract businesses or residents) that revitalizes a designated disaster area will also satisfy CRA standards. The guidelines extended to three years, from one, the period for making such CRA loans in a disaster area.

In a speech in New Orleans, Comptroller of the Currency John Dugan said Thursday that a longer extension might still be granted.

There was no correct option given for the last question. The answer they counted as correct was based on the mistaken assumption that there are 16 troy ounces to an avoirdupois pound. In actuality, there are 14.583

I got 8 points and should have avoided the thought that some of the easy ones were actually trick questions. For the last question I thought there were 12 troy ounces in one pound, although the question did only say "ounces" rather than "troy ounces."